Piper experimented with abstract compositions of form and colour between 1934 and 1938. This painting was illustrated in 1936 in the magazine on abstract art, 'Axis', then edited by his wife Myfanwy. The same year Piper expressed the hope that abstract painting would become 'lucid and popular, not in the least highbrow'. After abandoning abstraction in favour of neo-romantic landscape painting, he regarded these early compositions as 'exercises'.